David Hume was born in 1711, in Berwickshire, Scotland to a family that was moderately wealthy. When he was a child, he visited the local Church of Scotland, that happened to be pastored by his uncle, very often and was able to gain a background as politically a Whig and as religiously Calvinistic. Before leaving for the University of Edinburgh when he was eleven, he was educated by his mother, who was widowed. There at the university, he studied history, literature, modern, natural, and ancient philosophy, and mathematics. After he left the university at fifteen, decided to undertake a career in philosophy through private study, going against the wishes of his family who wanted him to pursue a career in law. Because of his deep background in religion, he soon began to question God and look for proofs, only in the end turning to atheism and classical Greek and Latin texts. In 1739 and 1740, he published his first work, A Treatise of Human Nature, which was only met with minimal interest. After releasing Essays, Moral and Political, in 1741 and 1742, he gained more attention and then decided to run as a candidate for the Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. After being declared as anti-religious, he withdrew his candidacy and in 1745 accepted a position as the secretary for General St. Clair. In 1748, after both of his essays were successful, he decided that his style was the only thing holding himself back and still continued directly attack religious belief and present how human morality actually worked. Hume once again tried to go for a chair of philosophy, but this time at the University of Glasgow, where he again failed but found a job as a librarian in the Advocate's LIbrary in Edinburgh. In the 1750's, Hume wrote one of his best-known works Four Dissertations (1757), where it too criticized religion and its common doctrines and the idea of life after death. His last major literary work was The History of England (1754-61), which earned him the title as not only a philosopher but as a historian also. In 1766, he was developing relationships with the great minds of the time such as Jean Jacques Rousseau, who charged him with trying to ruin his reputation. When he finally returned to Edinburgh for good in 1770, he spent most of his time revising all of his previous works and was also under attack by another philosopher under the name of James Beattie. Hume later died of intestinal cancer in 1776, but he had arranged for his most controversial works and material to be published after his death, including Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779).
School of Thought/Major Beliefs/Teachings:
David Hume was part of a larger school of thought called Empiricism. This group also included Locke, who Hume took much inspiration from, and Berkeley. Empiricists believed that sensory experience is our only source of knowledge. They wanted to find out how far this knowledge could extend and what the limitations are. The major ideas that Hume found himself in were, of course, empiricism, but also skepticism and naturalism. He was also a staunch atheist and was very anti-religious, which was very uncommon at this age because declaring atheism was punishable by death. Even though Hume considered himself to be a moralist, he tried to explain and describe how the human mind works when acquiring knowledge. His major teachings were that impressions and ideas made up the whole of the human sensory experience and the idea of causality, which is the ordinary association of ideas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3QZ2Ko-FOg(Video had no embed code)
Major Writings:
- "A Treatise of Human Nature" (1739-40):
This is considered by many to be one of Hume's best and most influential work. It argues for the validity of empiricism and uses the method to examine philosophical concepts, including skepticism and naturalism.
- "An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding" (1748, 1777):
This was almost a revision of the Treatise, with extra stuff such as views of personal identity taken out. It focused more on his more important arguments, which was the role of habit in a theory of knowledge.
- "Dialogues concerning Natural Religion" (1779):
In this philosophical work, Hume uses the dialogue between three fictional philosophers to argue about the nature of God's existence and how humans can have the knowledge to know that there is a deity.
Influenced by/Legacy:
Hume gained most of his inspiration from John Locke and his idea of empiricism. This inspiration can be seen in all of Hume's works, as seen in almost all of his writings, where he talks about the gaining of knowledge through sensory experiences. His legacy was taken on by Adam Smith, whose moral philosophy and economic writings were inspired by Hume, Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham, and Charles Darwin, who claimed that his theory of evolution used Hume's ideas as a central influence.
Further Reading:
- Blackburn, Simon. How to Read Hume (2008).
- Jones, Peter, ed. The Reception of David Hume in Europe London, New York: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005.
- Morris, William E., and Charlotte R. Brown. "David Hume." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 21 May 2014, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/. Accessed 23 Jan. 2018. - Fieser, James. "David Hume (1711-1776)." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, www.iep.utm.edu/hume/#H1. Accessed 23 Jan. 2018. -Merivale, Amyas, and Peter Millican. davidhume.org, www.davidhume.org/. Accessed 23 Jan. 2018. -Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas E. Jessop. "David Hume." Encyclopedia Britannica, 6 Dec. 2017, https://www.britannica.com/biography/David-Hume. Accessed 24 Jan. 2018.
Biography: | School of Thought/Major Beliefs/Teachings: | Major Writings: | Influenced by/Legacy: | Further Reading: | | Sources:
Biography:
David Hume was born in 1711, in Berwickshire, Scotland to a family that was moderately wealthy. When he was a child, he visited the local Church of Scotland, that happened to be pastored by his uncle, very often and was able to gain a background as politically a Whig and as religiously Calvinistic. Before leaving for the University of Edinburgh when he was eleven, he was educated by his mother, who was widowed. There at the university, he studied history, literature, modern, natural, and ancient philosophy, and mathematics. After he left the university at fifteen, decided to undertake a career in philosophy through private study, going against the wishes of his family who wanted him to pursue a career in law. Because of his deep background in religion, he soon began to question God and look for proofs, only in the end turning to atheism and classical Greek and Latin texts. In 1739 and 1740, he published his first work, A Treatise of Human Nature, which was only met with minimal interest. After releasing Essays, Moral and Political, in 1741 and 1742, he gained more attention and then decided to run as a candidate for the Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. After being declared as anti-religious, he withdrew his candidacy and in 1745 accepted a position as the secretary for General St. Clair. In 1748, after both of his essays were successful, he decided that his style was the only thing holding himself back and still continued directly attack religious belief and present how human morality actually worked. Hume once again tried to go for a chair of philosophy, but this time at the University of Glasgow, where he again failed but found a job as a librarian in the Advocate's LIbrary in Edinburgh. In the 1750's, Hume wrote one of his best-known works Four Dissertations (1757), where it too criticized religion and its common doctrines and the idea of life after death. His last major literary work was The History of England (1754-61), which earned him the title as not only a philosopher but as a historian also. In 1766, he was developing relationships with the great minds of the time such as Jean Jacques Rousseau, who charged him with trying to ruin his reputation. When he finally returned to Edinburgh for good in 1770, he spent most of his time revising all of his previous works and was also under attack by another philosopher under the name of James Beattie. Hume later died of intestinal cancer in 1776, but he had arranged for his most controversial works and material to be published after his death, including Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779).School of Thought/Major Beliefs/Teachings:
David Hume was part of a larger school of thought called Empiricism. This group also included Locke, who Hume took much inspiration from, and Berkeley. Empiricists believed that sensory experience is our only source of knowledge. They wanted to find out how far this knowledge could extend and what the limitations are. The major ideas that Hume found himself in were, of course, empiricism, but also skepticism and naturalism. He was also a staunch atheist and was very anti-religious, which was very uncommon at this age because declaring atheism was punishable by death. Even though Hume considered himself to be a moralist, he tried to explain and describe how the human mind works when acquiring knowledge. His major teachings were that impressions and ideas made up the whole of the human sensory experience and the idea of causality, which is the ordinary association of ideas.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3QZ2Ko-FOg(Video had no embed code)
Major Writings:
- "A Treatise of Human Nature" (1739-40):This is considered by many to be one of Hume's best and most influential work. It argues for the validity of empiricism and uses the method to examine philosophical concepts, including skepticism and naturalism.
- "An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding" (1748, 1777):
This was almost a revision of the Treatise, with extra stuff such as views of personal identity taken out. It focused more on his more important arguments, which was the role of habit in a theory of knowledge.
- "Dialogues concerning Natural Religion" (1779):
In this philosophical work, Hume uses the dialogue between three fictional philosophers to argue about the nature of God's existence and how humans can have the knowledge to know that there is a deity.
Influenced by/Legacy:
Hume gained most of his inspiration from John Locke and his idea of empiricism. This inspiration can be seen in all of Hume's works, as seen in almost all of his writings, where he talks about the gaining of knowledge through sensory experiences. His legacy was taken on by Adam Smith, whose moral philosophy and economic writings were inspired by Hume, Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham, and Charles Darwin, who claimed that his theory of evolution used Hume's ideas as a central influence.Further Reading:
- Blackburn, Simon. How to Read Hume (2008).- Jones, Peter, ed. The Reception of David Hume in Europe London, New York: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005.
- Hume, David. "A Treatise of Human Nature." davidhume.org, www.davidhume.org/texts/thn.html. Accessed 25 Jan. 2018.
Sources:
- Morris, William E., and Charlotte R. Brown. "David Hume." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 21 May 2014, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/. Accessed 23 Jan. 2018.- Fieser, James. "David Hume (1711-1776)." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, www.iep.utm.edu/hume/#H1. Accessed 23 Jan. 2018.
-Merivale, Amyas, and Peter Millican. davidhume.org, www.davidhume.org/. Accessed 23 Jan. 2018.
-Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas E. Jessop. "David Hume." Encyclopedia Britannica, 6 Dec. 2017, https://www.britannica.com/biography/David-Hume. Accessed 24 Jan. 2018.